Hello and welcome to sitcoms, I'm Dave Cowan. I'm James Carey and today we're actually dispensing with the sitcom aspect of sitcom geeks. We're going to be talking about writing for topical comedy shows, specifically at the moment Newsjack, which has just come back onto the radio for extra. And of course writing for topical comedy shows is one of the best ways of getting into writing comedy and then writing sitcoms.
And we're very pleased to have a special guest with us today, Bill Dair. Hello. Hello Bill. Nice to have you with us.
Bill is a writer, producer, script editor, so many things. He's also the tutor at the National Film Television School Comedy course, which is two nights a week, I think. One night, two evenings. Two evenings.
That's what it's just tonight. I get to hang out with young people in Soho without looking too much like a bad end. In fact, you're paid to hang out with your audience over. I am.
Okay. Well, there's not many people who can be saying that. Also, Bill has done that. He's had a long varied career and we're actually going to be talking to him in a podcast.
We talked to him about his career, but he also is the producer and the creator of Dead Ringers, which I understand recently won the Best Sketch Radio Sketch Show. It's one Best Radio Sketch Show on the British Comedy website. Yes. Congratulations.
It's voted by the website. Yes. That's also voted horrible, which was Best Sketch Show. I thought I'd just drop that one.
And they also host this podcast. Did they do? Yes, they do. They're not going to make sense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's all right. At least only when anything is it never does.
So we're fine. I'm glad to see you. Thank you very much. Nobody else did.
Anyway, we shall not take the 10-page challenge this episode either. You keep sending us your first 10 pages of sitcoms, by the way, because we will be doing a 10-page challenge special. A bumper. A bumper edition.
A permission of misery and nitpicking. Yeah. So, sitcomgeeks at Gmail. That's the address to send your 10-page challenge.
You can go to the channel. gmail.com. Gmail.com. Yes.
Okay. Welcome to the 21st Century Day. Let's talk to Bill. Let's talk to Bill.
Let's talk to Bill. Well, let's start talking about New Jack first. I know you. That's not your specific area, Bill.
But you do spend a lot of time with your students trying to teach them how to write topical comedy and to write sketches. Yeah. Well, some of it. Yeah.
I think we do about 10 weeks on sketches generally and maybe three of those weeks we talk about topical comedy. And is it something that you find out eager to do? It's something you find you have to talk them into. I'd say about on average about a third of them are quite eager to do it.
And the other two thirds kind of thing. Well, that's not really why I went into comedy. I mean, they go into comedy because they want to write the thick of it or girls or the next big thing. The next big thing.
Yeah. The next cult hits. Yeah. It's the next very cool small thing.
But to take as an example, the thick of it, two of the main rises on that Tony Roch and Simon Blackwell, of course, they started there careers as James and I did writing for week ending on Radio 4, a topical show, which is sadly or not so sadly no longer with us. But that's really how everybody gets started. Martin Burton, who's recently directed and wrote Sean the Sheep the movie. That's where he started.
John O'Farrell, who's musical, who's hit on Broadway. He started writing those. So, Mr. Prime Minister, about this new story that I'm going to be writing.
You have to kind of do it really. Well, you certainly did. And I guess we'll talk about whether this is as much as you guys. I mean, in a previous podcast, have you already gone out?
Whether you should make your own stuff, which is something which I say is a general rule. You should try to not bother making your own stuff, at least not to go to great expense and faff to make your one three minutes chisel scares. I was thinking about this and I've got to tell the students is that probably most writers spend 80 or 90 percent of their career writing for shows they haven't made themselves or haven't created themselves. Whether that be panel shows like I've got news or sketch shows or shows that have been created by famous people.
I think that's increasingly the case now because although you might want to create your own show, you're much more likely to now have your own show on TV if you're a writer, performer or you're a standard comedian. Whereas now all of the writer only people that I know are mostly working on other people's shows actually getting your own show on, which I was very lucky to do a few years ago. That's an anomaly. It is.
It might happen in a good lucky one, maybe twice. But it's very unlikely these days to keep happening over a period of a career. Listen to him, Graham, will you sort of almost now a performer and a persona in his own right. Andy Hamilton, although he's also something about the performer as well.
Actually, you say that, but in fact, some would be recently that so that IT crowd is 10 years old now. So it's actually 10 years since Graham and Graham. It's not that often that he has something out. I think one of the things that puts people off with topical comedy is they think, well, I'm not interested in the news.
And that's a shameful thing. What's the matter with you? It's definitely not a problem with news, Jack. The news is there as a kind of thing to sort of spring off elsewhere.
You have about with the agreement. It's not a program about the news, is it? Well, it's about, I'd say about about half of it is topical. Really, it is about the news.
I'm not particularly interested in party politics. But I'm interested in making points, but it is basically a satire show. And I'd say each one of the few shows that is actually politically neutral already, you've got the news quiz, which is definitely left-wing. The now show, which is usually left-wing.
And Taterina is neutral, which isn't to say that each sketch stands in the middle. Some sketch will be one point of view. And then later on in the show, there'll be a sketch that takes exactly the opposite point of view. It doesn't have a point of view as a whole.
I mean, there's a sense in which it's worth bearing in mind that, A, you're saying you're not that interested in party politics or even the news, to some extent. And if you think, well, I'm not interested in using it, I want to write for the top of the show. But also bear in mind that a lot of the audience are not terribly interested in the news either. They just like to laugh.
And in a sense, the news is the set up for a joke, is the set up, is the premise of the sketch. It's your sandbox for playing. It's the starting point. Yeah.
I mean, if you look at a show like I've got news for you in terms of the characters, I say characters, they're playing themselves really. But Ian Hislop is very much, he talks about the news, whereas Paul then comes in on that and then goes off into all sorts of directions really. And I think that's, if you're not, it shouldn't be a barrier really to think, well, I'm not as interested in the news as Ian Hislop is. It's just that you need to think, well, where can I take that news?
And you certainly do a lot of that with Dead Ring as being an impression of showing characters as well. Yeah, we create characters. It's one of the things that I look for with Dead Ring is these people who can create a character. We've got some really good characters, Diana, but not too far out, obviously.
Those, I mean, okay, they are based on the real people, but to a certain extent they've been created by the writers and the performers. And they really do take on a life of their own. They are characters, aren't they? I mean, I remember because they used to do a spitting image.
If you remember some of what Davey might remember. I remember a spitting image. I remember a spitting image. The Queen Mother had a Yorkshire accent from her memories.
And the Pope was this kind of hit American dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, maybe they love me.
They love me, man. You can do a lot with the character. And I really, really like it when people create characters as opposed to sending in a sketch, I don't have Aunt Jeremy Hunt. And it's just a bland, bland voice.
There's no impression there. I can't really do anything with it. I think that's a key thing, isn't it? It's such a basic thing, but people, I imagine, half of the sketches that you're sent from non-commissioned people from outside, I mean, half of them, you immediately breathe and go, I can't use this.
It doesn't fit the show. It does fit the show. One of the things writers tend not to do is study the show. And because they're not that interested in doing it.
Why should they? It may not be their favourite show. But if you want to write for a show, you've got to study the show, you've got to find out what you, what you, what James has called the secret rules or the hidden rules. And I mean, there are some fundamental rules for dead rangers, like every single sketch is apparently.
And I might not be immediately obvious on one list, but it should be obvious if you listen to a couple of episodes. And so when I get a sketch, which is set, I don't know, in the Prime Minister's bedroom or kitchen, I sort of think you haven't bothered to learn the fundamental basics of what the show is about. So it does make me think, why should I bother reading your sketch? And you will be forgiven for thinking that because you have, presumably, almost an unending pile of scripts.
Well, it's not a show that actually, it's not an open door show. So although if a sketch somehow arrives in my inbox from someone I don't know, if I've got time, I'll read it and actually give feedback. But it's not, I don't sort of advertise, hey, everyone's sending your sketch, because I wouldn't have time to read. We haven't got the organisation that Newshek has.
Because it's set up for that specifically. But even they would have the same problem with half the stuff that they get sent is just immediately, this doesn't feel like a Newshek sketch. But the house is not as important with all forms of writing, actually. I mean, if you want to write an article for the telegraph, it's got to be different from our article from leaving standard or not.
Just. Well, in fact, you have actually taken on some new writer, something you need to have. Yeah, I think, I think one of the things that I think most producers love, really love doing is finding new talent and putting someone's first ever sketch on radio or TV. It's a really nice feeling, nice to do that.
So yeah, I am always looking for all of these. It is a really nice feeling because I have had at least one hand in that form, particularly writer, when I was a script editor for, I created a recording for Training purposes, which was an open door policy radio foreshow. And there was somebody sent in a sketch or a pile of sketches and everyone thought, oh, these are no good. And I just thought, well, these are, they are no good, but they're kind of weird in a way that I hadn't heard before.
I'd like to hear more from this person. And then I ended up getting them sending some more, just getting some a bit of notes, a bit of a shove and one direction. And they ended up being the most accessible writer on that series. I don't want to embarrass them by saying anything else.
But did they go on to have a bit of a career? They are now doing, and have written on shows that I would like to write. So I can leapfrog. But I think people just assume from the outside that it's a close shop and we're desperate to keep everybody out.
And there was recently a call for a TV sketch show recently that I put a link on the Facebook page to, and said, oh, don't send them your stuff, they're just going to steal your ideas. They said, well, they didn't really want steal your ideas because they want you to give them other ideas. Absolutely. And they've got, I mean, that's a ridiculous thing to say.
I mean, programs have budgets to pay writers and producers love finding a new sketch on their. So it's ridiculous the idea that someone could would nick your idea. And I think, I mean, there is always a problem as well with a show like Newsjack or Dead Ring Us, lots and lots of people will come up with the same funny idea. Generally, the best thing to do is to if it's the first idea that comes to your head, then it will be the first idea that comes to every other writer's head.
So you should ignore it anyway. But you will hear something on Newsjack chances are that you might hear something written by one of the commission writers that's making exactly the same joke that you made. Again, it's not been nicked. It's just that everybody had that idea.
And somebody felt, well, we've got this is how this has got to be our take on Newsjack. So that kind of thing does happen. One of the things I think as well, I mean, there is actually, we don't want to go into too much technical detail about what you need to write for Newsjack because there is absolute mountain of information about how to write for Newsjack. You really should read all of it because it's all really useful stuff.
The stuff by people who produce the show, for instance, some very good stuff about formatting. Now, often when we do this show, we talk about say we say we're not that bothered about formatting. If you've written something that's funny and we can read it, then we'll get excited. But I think for Newsjack, you really do have to they get so much stuff that you do have to follow the formats.
But it is really worth reading all the stuff that's up on the other side. And again, if you don't follow the formatting, it's showing that you're not really being a team player and that you either you can't be bothered. You've been told how to do it. You haven't done it.
That's already making me think, oh, okay. The moment you pick a sketch, the first impression of that sketch is not even the first word. It's how it looks on the page. And so you're already worried when you pick it up that they haven't followed the format and you're thinking, oh, this doesn't go well.
It's so easy to follow formats to do it. I mean, there's so many people often say, parodies or programs that haven't been on for 10, 20 or 30 years, like nine dates. It's like black or something like that. They haven't even changed it.
They're going to take it to take turns, it's going to take me out. I'm sure people dusted off all their run Reagan jokes and put them in game to George W. Yes. That's fair game.
One thing that people tend to be topical comedy is writers tend to write for maybe two shows, three shows and then give up. That's probably the most common thing that I see. And what I think what producers want is to know that you've got staying power. So you might not get on for anything on for three shows.
Then four shows, the fourth show you might kind of nearly get something on and producers want to know that you're going to be around and keep going. That's really important. Just on the fact that you said when you started out you tried for week ending for two weeks. It's one of my little life is that I did try to write for this topical show week ending which was kind of the equivalent of news chat.
And because I didn't get anything on for two weeks and I didn't really like the show. I kind of gained up and thought well how did they not put my sketches on? I think I got stuff on week ending on my fifth or sixth week. I think that was, I mean it ran I think in 13 week turns or something like that.
But yeah it does take a while. It does take a while. And there is, you can develop that attitude which you've probably had in your youthful base bill. I feel like oh well you know they don't want my stuff there obviously.
You know it's a rubbish show anyway. I don't want to have my name associated with that. It's actually squares. That's how they talk right?
Yeah. I think for some reason I'm so good for this show. For some reason of comedy I like most other arts and crafts is people expect to be able to do it from square one. I've never written a sketch before but I'm writing one now and I expect it to get on a radio or television program.
No other art or craft would you have that kind of arrogance? Well I would disagree. I think the screenwriter industry well proves that there are thousands of players of people out there who think I could write a screenplay. Well I think that's great.
I think the media, I think the little thing in particular is that you wouldn't turn up to National Gallery and say no. So which bit can I draw my picture on? Well you can't really do that. I mean it's hard to expect that to play an instrument you've got to practise or to draw or you can't do central heating or plumbing or gardening.
You've got to do a bit of work but I don't know comedy just I'm just going to sit down and write a sketch. Yeah yeah yeah. I'm funny in the pub so I should be able to be funny on paper as well. It doesn't always bear up.
You talk about bill about so you want to be surprised by a sketch. Yeah you just really when you read a sketch you just want to have that sort of element. Oh I really I wasn't expecting that. I get it.
It's true. I can see a grain of truth in it and but it's not just making a point. It's doing it. Some kind of a bleak surprise in mind which I would never thought of.
And again it shows what you can do as a writer because I think again with my sitcom book that I wrote I was increasingly trying to tell people your sitcom script you're trying to write is it's very much beyond television even my script's actually on television and I know what I'm doing and I've got really good connections as I had a show on TV. This script is designed to get you work. This script is designed to show what you can do and so therefore what you need to be thinking is that the three or four sketches that you send in you want them to be on yes but you also want them to show that you have a perseverance that you've got good ideas you've got good jokes that you that you can surprise as well and if you do a surprise you end up not using a sketch well that's fine but you've sort of gained a few ticks in the column and when you come back the second week the when you when you click open the final thinking oh this person had some good ideas last time I didn't quite work let's see what we've got this time. You're building up a reputation and also you're practicing.
Yeah she's really important and it's I think as David's saying it's really important not to go with your first idea and what I what I say to the students is you know what you do after thinking of a good idea for a sketch what should you do think of another one don't write a sketch just think of another good idea then another good idea then another good idea and then you kind of know you've got some choice yeah you're not just going with your idea because it's the only one you've got yeah yeah it's a very good point. I'd like to talk about punchline as well at some point is that yeah well just in terms of the surprise as well it's great mistake as a surprise it's also great one has a punchline my own experience writes a script editing you know reading hundreds of sketches occasionally you would get a sketch which is borderline and then they haven't really got a any think if I have to use this if I'm going to use a sketch I either have to send it back write an email and say this is fine I'll need to think of one yeah either way I'm having to do work and I quite like to go home at six o'clock and see my kids so I would always say just work so hard to think of a decent punchline because otherwise someone else is gonna have to because they're not gonna do a sketch without a punchline so I'm almost to the view that if you don't have a punchline you don't have a sketch the idea is very important but you do need an out because if you don't have an out you're gonna have to think of on yourself or you're gonna have to get somebody else that makes it less likely to be used yeah punch lines are very hard but but they are necessary and I think the clue to the punchline is almost within the body of the sketch and I mean one possible way of trying to find that punchline is to keep rereading the sketch and just thinking is there any is there any line that I can use in some kind of surprising or look at a tangent from a tenon yeah and I think it's also I mean I've really lost of sketches that have got that have got a very good idea they got a good twist and people think oh here's an idea what if this was this and they got and so they've got the beginning and they've got a twist and then they've got a few jokes there but that's actually not enough for a whole sketch you need another twist that then gets you into the punchline and I think that's getting the second twist that gets you to the punchline that's that's what separates people who get a lot of sketches on radio and TV shows from people who don't is you've got to go that much further you got to get that extra twist on the ideas I've got often it's a reversal of some kind of punchline someone's suddenly changing my mind or it certainly turns out you undermine the entire sketch it's a wild it's a wild goose chase or a shanty dog story or something it's like oh well I only came in because of X oh for what you said before you can almost hear that what you're running is still yeah well here we go again one where the same thing seems to happen again yes there is a a tendency I find with students that's um they're especially with topical comedy is they'll the punch line to one topical sketch will be another another story and I always thought you shouldn't do that and I think that generally that's a sort of rule that you don't do that however newsoids which show that was on ITV recently they seem to do that quite a lot and show certainly didn't suffer so we also rules are there to be broken but generally I think for a show like Newsjek and certainly for dead ringers you don't want to make the punchline of your sketch another a whole different story because they may already have another sketch on that story anyway not just being a good muddy yeah another common kind of error but the perfectly understandable is that sometimes people will send in a sketch based on a kind of running format or running character that we've already got on the show whether that be different or any other show and if you think about it we don't we don't need that we've already got that character we've already got that little running joke or format and whoever created the original wants to keep writing it so you know don't send Diane Abbott sketches or we might not have a round sketch is because we've got that covered yeah try and think of something new yes that's right and yeah and the writer of those sketches will defend those at my point yes I remember the early days of dead ringers I do remember and so I think somebody somebody tried to write a brain percuminous sketch that wasn't that John Holmes created this character a blind person somebody tried to write a blind percuminous sketch I think there was a severe muttering that's going on oh it's right the right it's a confrontation with writers get we just sort of look away and say say rude words and they're actually addressing and carrying around us for the next 20 years that's what we made making the director general giving them the director general the voice of Michael Kane was actually a brilliant brilliant way to get the show yeah mission on TV yes that's fantastic I keep wanting us to do whatever he's made what's his name we can't director general Tony Hall yeah but he's quite quite a blind voice all right yeah yeah he's not he's not very memorable in terms of local sound is he that's not a short comedy or David Bowie maybe I should be dinking Alan Bennett okay because it's he's quite gentle isn't it yeah but it's not really the gentleness of the dg isn't really a thing is it no you know what I mean you sort of need to have that sort of yeah you want to have your hanging stuff on things out they're not just for topical shows but I mean I was like the recording purposes was a show that was loosely about communications but there are other topical shows like the show what you wrote and they have themes and sometimes you need to base a sketch on something and sometimes you're really thinking is this is this a thing I don't quite you know you know how when x happens does that happen I'm not sure what that's so yeah it's tricky to find the right but there you go hang out there if you've got a voice for Tony Hall and I did for writing it every once one of the things just to kind of reassure you if you think oh you know I really thought I was doing really well and yeah I still have much to get anything on I mean this is a kind of typical day in the life of comedy writer who's written for a show like Muse Jack you've got the thrill of coming up with a new idea and you've worked harder to and you've sent it off and it's the best that you can do in the time you have but is that good enough you don't know then they say yes we like that we're gonna record it and you go and you see it being recorded and then you hear it and it's been recorded and it gets laughs and you think oh god it's gonna go out and then you listen to the show and it didn't go out and there's always you know like a million reasons why sketches aren't used one of which might be it's not good enough but those definitely times when sketches aren't used for other reasons legal reasons or just didn't fit the pace or whatever you know so so don't lose heart if you get that far with the sketch and still get a sketch in a script that is pretty good yeah and I think people forget you're hearing at home the finished article so again you're trying to each week do slightly better than the week before so the first two or three weeks you're finding a feat you're finding the house style you're you're showing what you can do the fourth week you might get a sketch into the script and then it doesn't make it into the recording because it just didn't quite punch through in the read through beforehand then you might get it actually recorded and it doesn't make it it's not broadcast but again both of those are wins for you you're not getting paid but you're not doing this for the money anyway but both of those are wins for you because you're showing to the producer that you can deliver material that's in the right area and sometimes I've been amazed when a new writer new writer new issue writer that's really good idea and it goes out and we record it it doesn't let me when it's don't go for it and I'm I'm bashful this is a really good idea I'm sorry that it's not we're not gonna broadcast this that's just I can't broadcast this because I think it works because it obviously doesn't so yeah it's it's pretty brutal but again it's it's a marathon not sprint speaking of the live shows I would really recommend any writer whether they've got something in the script or not to go and see the show being recorded whether that's a news jack or anything or any show you want to write for partly because it shows the producer that you're really interested you can bother to turn up you'll also see all the stuff that doesn't quite make it and then you can see why and basically you get to sort of network with you know the other writers the performers of producer whoever which I also think is really important to sort of show your face as Woody Allen said you know half of success is showing up showing up 80 percent I think he gave 80 percent of success showing up yes so he must have shown up quite a lot because he's pretty successful yes so to sum up then read the brief read it well read very well especially with new step read all the advice on some of its conflicting admittedly but you know just read it all anyway and take take from it what you can punch lines always have a good punch line what else what's the name I think it just remembering that it takes it takes a while to get going and it's interesting that even after your success in 17 fields in different kinds of writing you're still regret only doing two weeks of weekending yeah I do because that was you know I think if I'd done that I probably would have been more sensible and just been a writer rather than a writer producer and confusing myself and everyone else the other thing is just as I think with an idea when you've got an idea for a sketch trying to think would anyone else have thought of this idea would another writer have thought of it and the answer should preferably be probably not because that might mean that it's actually quite original yeah bearing in mind of course with new step you are competing with hundreds of people thousands of people from all over the world English language speakers so that's you just have to live with that I guess but yeah there's still room for you to have your original point so it's worth persevering also because these are the writers of the people who will be your peers as you move through the industry you'll be making contacts with a producer who will stop producing a new stack at some point and may look to you for sitcom ideas or other things like that and you know we just go back to where we started really this is the building block of comics sketches are the building block of situation commonly in particular but you're taking one idea you're making it work a sketch is a scene really isn't it and it is no coincidence that um yeah John Sullivan you know what writing sketches for the two runnies and David Renwick was writing sketches and Andrew Marshall and uh you know our friend Pete Sinclair who's very right writing doubloon and stuff like that it's it's so common it's so normal that it is well worth pursuing and it sometimes feels like practicing your scales but that's okay yeah okay well thanks very much Bill thank you very much and we'll see you on the other side for another podcast where we talk about other things about we can come back next week yeah yeah don't just we're not to record it now don't go thinking we're just gonna do it back to back two weeks actually two weeks two weeks yeah just sit here for two weeks in absolutely something something something something something something something you never know because you never know um don't forget to um send in your scripts sitcomgeeksatgmail.com um your first-time pages look on our facebook page you can find some facebook we have written books and blah blah you can listen to that out show another week oh another podcast uh the only thing will be if you'd like the podcast just to say that it'll be great if you could go on to i-chines and say nice things about us that will be good that will be lovely that will be lovely that sometimes helps i have no idea how that helps with apparently it does other podcasts i listen to tell me to do that so therefore i'm assuming it's a good idea okay maybe it's just no point at all but everybody just says it as a kind of convention but great thank you to katie i'll be doing so thank you and um thank you to jane for our theme tune and debbie saunters for our logo and british comedy guide for hosting us thank you very much here we go bye